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Off the Dead

Yeah, I’ve gone off The Walking Dead. For years I was a devoted viewer. I was drawn to the challenges of surviving in a devastated society. I was fascinated by the ingenuity required to survive another day. It was a tale of fortitude and resourcefulness, interspersed with moments of tragedy and loss. Then it changed a couple of seasons ago. It became more about confrontation than survival. There had always been episodes and story-lines that featured confrontation, and legitimately so, but now it was all about the battle between one faction and another, the threat of zombies largely sidelined, and the logistic struggle to survive altogether missing.

I found it drawn out and tedious, and often overwrought. It felt like a violent soap opera being fought out in some barren, dystopian future, the writing varying between sentimental cloy and laughable ‘tough’ talk.

I’ve lost a lot of interest in recent years, watching out of habit and in the vain hope that this story line might be wrapped up and a new story begun. Throughout I’ve felt often discomfited by what I’ve felt to be a tendency towards the more fascist.

I know there’s a lot of people who feel similarly to me. With the last season just wrapping up I held hopes that it might take a new direction next season, but that seems unlikely. More confrontation was foreshadowed. The writing, which has deteriorated greatly, veered between clichéd contradictions, words undercut by actions. And some of those actions continue to be pretty ugly.

I’ll watch the first episode next season to see where it’s going. In general I’m much more interested in Fear The Walking Dead, but who’s to say it won’t go down a similar path?